A week into my program...

The rest of my volunteer group went on Safari so it is pretty much just me until Sunday so may go see Moshi if I can't find anyone here to play with. I would like to go on the Safari too, but the one that our fairly disorganized program touts is pretty expensive and I can't justify spending that much money this early in my trip. I think it comes out to $550 or $600 for a four day safari. I think that is probably average in Tanzania, but I know they can be cheaper in Kenya. Either way though, my goal was to work and adjust for awhile and then go when I am thinking of moving on. I have gotten to like some of the other volunteers more, but most of them are awfully young and they have very different objectives. I do wonder if perhaps, given my relatively hard core objective, I would have been more satisfied by joining the PeaceCorp.

I don't want to sit around, I want to work hard and go to bed tired. Today my workday was so completely ineffective that I finished my book and eventually left. I am told that I will begin teaching Monday (Friday is a holiday) but they can't exactly tell me what that will entail. I ask and ask, but I guess we are planning that Monday too. I will give it another week to pickup and create some direction before I see if I can change my work site. When I chose to go to Tanzania instead of Kenya I knew that it would be more disorganized, but this is more than I was expecting. The head of the program will be here in early September to work problems out. Sometimes things are frustrating but I remind myself that everything about being here is a learning experience. So far I have been learning a lot about patience, inefficiency, and poor organizational structure (not that I hadn't learned about that from Telefund already...). I am learning more interesting things too, especially from my host family which is fabulous.

My host mother was born in Kenya as one of 12 children to a man who worked on the railroad. He had only enough money for school fees and clothes and they harvested and grew their own food. She eventually went to University in Nairobi as well as the Netherlands and now she works in some capacity for the UN. She lost some very close friends in the embassy bombing 10 years ago today. I believe that my host family would be considered middle class or even upper middle class here. They have a house girl who cooks and cleans and a guard. There are bars on the windows to prevent break-ins. They have a stove, refrigerator, blender, toaster, radio, TV, cell phones, a flush toilet, hot water, a Bible, a car and another home that they rent out but have never lived in. They do not have a microwave, dishwasher, or air conditioning (or heat for that matter). They believe that the government of Tanzania squanders all of the country's wealth and keeps it for themselves rather than distributing it to the people and I think that this is true. Tanzania could probably be a very rich country, it is just poorly managed.

Of the teachers that I work with the science teacher is most demanding and has a very confusing sense of humor. The highest grade on his chemistry final was 68. He teaches all about diseases and microbes but he picks his nose with a ferocity that I cannot convey with words and he reserves this special activity for deep and thoughtful conversations.

People here laugh at the ineptitude of Europeans and Americans when it comes to simple tasks like washing clothes and cleaning shoes. Apparently, we are known for this. Tanzanians typically would never throw something away just because it got stained or went out of style. This includes my fairly well-off host family who weld their gate together with spare electrical wire and bottle caps.